Northern Colorado Fireshed Fund Awards First Round of Capacity Building Grants

The Northern Colorado Fireshed Fund has announced its first round of grant awards for collaborative capacity building projects across the Front Range. Approximately $975,000 will be distributed to awardees during this round to help support organizational capacity building for community-connected partners, community engagement efforts, and planning for cross-boundary wildfire mitigation projects.

The Northern Colorado Fireshed Fund was established in partnership with the
National Forest Foundation and the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests to support the activities of the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative. The Fund allows the Fireshed Collaborative to cultivate and allocate diverse funding sources to support activities that advance its mission and helps to achieve impacts at the large landscape level and across jurisdictional boundaries.

Initial funding is provided by the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in connection with the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy. Awardees include:

• Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed – Building resiliency in the Cache la Poudre
  watershed through community engagement
• Boulder Valley Longmont Conservation District – Capacity Building Through Administrative
  Personnel
• Larimer Conservation District – Capacity Building
• The Watershed Center – St. Vrain Forest Health Partnership
• Peaks to People Water Fund – Big Thompson Watershed Health Partnership
• Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership – Forestry and Engagement Capacity for Gilpin County and Clear Creek County

Proposals were reviewed by the Fireshed Collaborative’s Investment Committee, which was developed to make recommendations to the National Forest Foundation for Fund investments. The Investment Committee coordinates the process of developing requests for proposals, soliciting and/or inviting proposals, and sets forth the submission requirements. The Investment Committee applied criteria informed by the Steering Committee to evaluate proposals to determine alignment with priorities and relative merit. The goal of this committee is to enhance the Fireshed Collaborative’s ability to garner funding and expand capacity.

The Investment Committee anticipates offering additional opportunities as more funding becomes available.

Photo: Partners from the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative lead a community field trip to project sites in the Red Feather area to help educate the public about our landscape-scale strategy to protect communities and improve watershed resilience.